Born in Communist Poland and now living in the United States, DP Anka Malatynska has worked on everything from shorts to episodics. Her recent projects include HBO Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, Amazon’s I Know What You Did Last Summer and four episodes of Hulu’s Monsterland.
Malatynska has continually sought out and created work that is bold and diverse. When describing her work, she says, “My signature style is slightly heightened. I am a sucker for beauty and visuals that allow me to step into another world and forget about the world I live in.” When she’s not on-set, she’s teaching her craft. She spent a large part of the pandemic teaching remotely from Nicaragua and has also served as a visiting professor of cinematography at Northwestern University in Qatar. Before that, she taught at Northern Arizona University. Malatynska likes to say, “Cinematography is my church and daily bread.”
We recently spoke with Malatynska about her work on Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, which co-creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is billing as a “new chapter” of the original Pretty Little Liars story — and not a reboot. The new chapter also has a different feel than the original. When discussing the look of the show, she says, “It’s much more seeded in the horror genre, both visually and story-wise. It’s a lot darker.”
Let’s find out more…
How early did you get involved in planning for the reboot?
I got involved after they already shot the first two episodes. So while I wasn’t there for a lot of the planning, I was there for about 90% of the execution of the work — which also took a lot of planning.
What direction were you given about the look of the show?
In general, the direction was that we wanted to keep it edgy and push the envelope. We wanted to get really creative shots and think outside of the box when it came to camera placement. We also wanted to use the horror/slasher genre as a pool of active references for what we are trying to achieve and emulate.
How did you work with the colorist? Was there a DIT on this show? Were you working with on-set LUTs?
Luckily, I had just finished I Know What You Did Last Summer with the same colorist (Shane Harris from the Picture Shop), who was our final colorist on Pretty Little Liars. Immediately when I took the show over, he and I were on the phone about what wasn’t working within the structure of the LUT we were using. I felt very lucky that I got teamed up with someone I had just finished working with, whose eye I trusted. This really streamlined the post production process because we communicated directly with each other.
Our DIT was Andrew Pisano, and we had light grade on-set every day, so we were using the show LUT and using CDLs to really dial in the look of specific scenes. When I came in after the second episode, the final colorist and I changed the show LUT a bit. I think the first two episodes were a little too dark for post to deal with, even though those episodes look spectacular. I don’t think the original team did anything wrong; they just really wanted to protect a really dark look.
We changed that a bit so we didn’t run into issues like people disappearing into the background. We were able to change the show LUT without changing the look of the show. The LUT just gave a little bit of protection for the darkest pieces in the frame.
Can you talk about the differences working on TV episodes versus films?
I think one of the biggest differences is that on a film, I typically get to sit in with the colorist for at least a week going through all the scenes. In TV it starts to happen while you are shooting, so that review process has to be a lot more streamlined. I’m not going into a color correction day with a colorist in LA or New York, I’m reviewing these episodes on my iPad and communicating with the colorist from there.
Usually I’m doing it while working on another show late at night. So I think the biggest difference is time. When you are shooting a television show, you don’t want to rely on post production to shape the image. You want to get the image as close to your vision as possible during the shoot because the color correction process is going to have to be a lot faster and a lot more streamlined with a lot fewer hands on the controls.
I’ve run into DPs who say, “We’ll fix in post.” I think to myself, “When are you going to fix that in post? You are already going to be on a different show with no time.” It’s also fun and exciting to rely on the cinematography and the lighting of what you are actually capturing on-set instead of thinking, I will do it later… because there never is a later.
What cameras and lenses did you use for Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin?
We used the DXL2 – Millennium DXL 8K Red Monstro body with Panaspeed 70mm primes. So, large-format lenses on a large-format camera. I had just shot an independent film with the same camera package with some of the lenses, so when I found out what they were shooting on, I thought it was a wonderful gift. I had sense of relief because it’s exactly what I would have chosen. On the DXL, the chip has a very natural curve. It’s very soft in a way. It’s the most natural-looking image, the most filmlike and natural. It has a little bit of texture.
Using the DXL2, we shot in 5K, so it made all our lenses perceptively a little tighter. I love epic, exaggerated wide shots in horror; they give the sense that something is off without distracting from the story. I would jump out to 8K resolution on our camera and our 17mm lens to incorporate a wider iris forced perspective of our Millwood world.
Some examples of that are the Y2K party warehouse in Episode 3, or the hand-held sequence when Mouse is freaking out in her room in Episode 7. There is something off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it — the perspective is forced. We used a lot of wider and closer frames to put the viewer right there in the experience of our Pretty Little Liars. There is an immediacy to this kind of storytelling.
Where was the series shot, and how long was the shoot?
The series was shot in upstate New York in the Catskills. A lot of us lived in Woodstock, so we lived in our fake town of Millwood. We really leaned in to using existing locations in upstate New York, which have that small-town, picturesque and creepy-cabin-in-the-woods vibe.
They started shooting the first two episodes last summer in August and September. Then they took a break to review what they had done and started back in October. We shot all the way to the beginning of May this year. Close to a year in the making.
Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin has a much different vibe than the original series. Did you go back and watch the original series at all for research?
It was 100% on purpose. For those who had a chance to see the behind-the-scenes video that HBO Max just put out, the creators really wanted to lean into the slasher genre with a Michael Myers type of figure. We didn’t want to do a reboot of the same show. We wanted to use the show to create these characters. It’s much more seeded in the horror genre, both visually and story-wise.
I did a little research on the original show and was very excited to be part of this reboot because of how the creators approach the show. It was really highly stylized and dark. It’s not just visually exciting, but the stories are also deep and exciting.
You were the cinematographer on Amazon’s I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hulu’s Monsterland, which are both darker shows too. Do you gravitate more toward the horror genre?
As a cinematographer I love playing with darkness. I love pushing to the very edge of how dark I can go, of how dark a studio or network will let me go. I’m very attracted to dark imagery. I love thrillers, horror and sci-fi because those genres really allow me to be very expressive.
However, I’m currently working on a very different show (NCIS: Hawai’i) right now. Very glam and high-key. I’m trying not to pigeonhole myself in one thing. Instead I’m trying to learn new things and expand my palate. But my friends do call me the Queen of Darkness. I think we really achieved something spectacular with Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. Just how dark and yet how beautiful and glamorous it is.
How would you describe your signature style as a cinematographer?
I would describe it as slightly heightened. I am a sucker for beauty and visuals that allow me to step into another world and forget about the world I live in. I am much more interested in different versions of reality, rather than attempting to be a documentarian. Even when we are trying to make something feel normal, for me in a movie, I am always longing for a sense of magic in the visual.
Is there one piece of equipment that you can’t live without?
A camera. I feel like equipment changes. I feel like lighting has evolved. There are some light fixtures that I really love working with. Specifically, Titans and Helios. Being able to control them on a dimmer board makes all the difference because they are quick and easy. I love those tools.
Are there other tools I can’t live without? Cinematography. It’s not necessarily about the tool; it’s about what you will be able to say with that tool and how you will use it. It’s not the camera that makes a great cinematographer. It’s the mind and the eye and the aesthetic choices of the individuals.
